When Data Science Meets Medicine

Bin Yu, a 2022 Fellow with the UC Noyce Initiative, is applying cutting edge data science techniques to pressing issues in health and medicine.

Becoming An Antiracist School of Public Health

A new paper describes the school's journey over a two-year period to establish an Antiracist Pedagogy Faculty Leadership Academy, a series of antiracism trainings for staff and non-faculty academics, and an elective course on antiracism for students.

She built a model overnight that would guide S.F.’s pandemic response. Now, she predicts our COVID future

 

San Francisco was a few days into sheltering in place in March 2020 when Dr. Maya Petersen got a surprising and urgent request: Health officials wanted to know whether she could put together a model that would help them forecast what was shaping up to be a horrifying pandemic.

Age Vs. Genetics: Which Is More Important For How You Age?

Amid much speculation and research about how our genetics affect the way we age, a University of California, Berkeley, study now shows that individual differences in our DNA matter less as we get older and become prone to diseases of aging, such as diabetes and cancer.

Valley Fever’s Rise in California is Linked to Drought and Warming Temperatures in the State

Coccidioidomycosis—also known as Valley fever—is an infectious disease that is taking an increasing toll on the health of Californians and people living throughout the Southwest. In a study published today in Lancet Planetary Health, researchers at UC Berkeley have discovered a pronounced role of California’s recent droughts in driving the transmission of the pathogen in the state.

Study Finds Potentially Dangerous Levels of Arsenic in Prison Drinking Water

A new study led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and Virginia Tech is one of the first to analyze how incarcerated individuals in California may be impacted by arsenic-contaminated water. The study analyzed 20 years of water quality data from prisons where arsenic levels in the water supply exceeded regulatory limits for months or even years at a time.

Bringing Arsenic-Safe Drinking Water to Rural California

In collaboration with Hutson and other Allensworth community leaders, engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, are currently field testing a simple and low-cost new arsenic treatment system that is designed to help small, rural communities like Allensworth access arsenic-safe drinking water.

Study Finds Medical Procedure That Rejuvenates Old Human Blood

This Halloween season, vampires might want to pause their never-ending search for the blood of youth. A new study from UC Berkeley researchers disputes the idea that, for humans, young blood can rejuvenate the old — and suggests there is likely a better way to ward off the ravages of time.

An Anti-Cancer Drug in Short Supply Can Now Be Made by Microbes

The supply of a plant-derived anti-cancer drug can finally meet global demand after a team of scientists from Denmark and the U.S. engineered yeast to produce the precursor molecules, which could previously only be obtained in trace concentrations in the native plant. A study describing the breakthrough was published today in Nature.

What Is Monkeypox and How Worried Should We Be? A Q&A With Dr. John Swartzberg

Monkeypox was declared a public health emergency in the United States last week, with cases exploding to over 7,500 between May (when there were only two cases reported) and August 2022. We asked John Swartzberg, clinical professor emeritus of infectious diseases and vaccinology at UC Berkeley School of Public Health, to give us his perspective on the virus: where it came from, how it spreads, and what individuals can do to protect themselves from contracting it.

Secret Behind ‘Nic-Sickness’ Could Help Break Tobacco Addiction

If you remember your first hit on a cigarette, you know how sickening nicotine can be. Yet, for many people, the rewards of nicotine outweigh the negative effects of high doses. University of California, Berkeley, researchers have now mapped out part of the brain network responsible for the negative consequences of nicotine, opening the door to interventions that could boost the aversive effects to help people quit smoking.

Transfusing blood from an old mouse to a younger mouse causes ageing

Transfusing young mice with blood from older rodents quickly triggers ageing, suggesting that cellular ageing isn't just a case of wear and tear. There is a longstanding hypothesis that surgically connecting an old mouse with a young rodent causes a transfer of blood that de-ages the older animal. While this benefits the older mouse, the effects on the young donor rodent were less clear. Irina Conboy at the University of California, Berkeley , and her colleagues transfused blood between young and old mice. Those aged 3 months got blood from animals that were approaching 2 years old. Two weeks later, the young mice had an increased number of senescent cells ? cells in the liver, kidneys and muscles that are damaged and stop dividing, but don't die. Strength tests also revealed the young mice became weaker after receiving the older rodents' blood. "Cell senescence is only part of the process of ageing," says Conboy. "That opens new horizons and helps explain why senolytics (drugs that clear senescent cells in the body) so far in clinical trials were less successful than people hoped."

CRISPR, 10 Years On: Learning to Rewrite the Code of Life

In just a decade, CRISPR has become one of the most celebrated inventions in modern biology. It is swiftly changing how medical researchers study diseases: Cancer biologists are using the method to discover hidden vulnerabilities of tumor cells. Doctors are using CRISPR to edit genes that cause hereditary diseases. But CRISPR's influence extends far beyond medicine. Evolutionary biologists are using the technology to study Neanderthal brains and to investigate how our ape ancestors lost their tails. Plant biologists have edited seeds to produce crops with new vitamins or with the ability to withstand diseases. Some of them may reach supermarket shelves in the next few years. CRISPR has had such a quick impact that Dr. Doudna, a biochemist at the University of California, Berkeley, and her collaborator, Emmanuelle Charpentier of the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens in Berlin, won the 2020 Nobel Prize for chemistry. The award committee hailed their 2012 study as "an epoch-making experiment."

Scientists Find Trigger That Sets Off Metastasis in Pancreatic Cancer

Pancreatic cancer, though rare, is one of the deadliest of cancers, killing nearly 50,000 people yearly and doing so quickly, primarily because it metastasizes rapidly through the body. Barely one in 10 people survive beyond five years. But a discovery by chemists at the University of California, Berkeley, suggests a new way to slow or stop metastatic spread of pancreatic and perhaps other cancers.
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